Getting wished by Megadeth man Dave Mustaine on your birthday comes for a price but friends of the birthday boy or girl think it’s absolutely worth $299. Having a celebrity look into the camera, read out your name and wish you only the very best is a high. You can also get Brian Cox, Sophie Skelton, Bret Hart, Colin Mochrie, Ted Nugent and even Sarah Palin to get those few lines read.
Driving the personalised-message app wagon is Cameo, which is based on a very simple idea — let starry-eyed fans pay celebrities to record a message for any occasion, birthdays, promotions, birth in the family or, at times, even divorces. And these video nuggets can be shared to any platform of choice. Keeping Cameo company are CelebVM, CeleByte, TheWysh.com and Tring, each of these come with a slight twist.
Cameo is the brainchild of Martin Blencowe, Steven Galanis and Devon Townsend, who launched it in 2017. Currently valued at $1 billion, the app makes money by taking commission from each celebrity’s sale, which can be pricey in the case of Kevin O’Leary (appeared in Shark Tank), who has a fee of $1,500 or affordable with Larry Thomas aka The Soup Nazi man from Seinfeld. His message can be yours for $80.
You may disagree over the celebrity status of some of the names found on these apps but it’s best to remember that one person’s hero can be another’s nobody. Navigating Cameo is very easy. If you know the name of the celebrity you want to book, just head over to the search bar or scroll through using the price bar or categories, like music, actors, comedians, reality TV, athletes or comedians.
Not every celebrity is available 24x7, so go through the bio of each to find out more. And not every celebrity will agree to offer a message, like if you are asking for something nasty to an already nasty break-up. Plus, there is the issue of turnaround time, which can take days.
On Cameo, you even have the option of making one-to-one calls with a select group of celebrities. The list is limited and it’s best to go through the names beforehand. For example, on September 8 you can have a two-minute chat with Tiana Benjamin, who had a role in the film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and has been a series regular on EastEnders. And this will set you back by $12. Singer Edwin McCain is available on September 9 for $110.
Dave Mustaine — $299 on Cameo
Jay Bhanushali — Rs 14,410 on Thewysh.com
Raghu Ram — Rs 9,999 on Tring
Samantha Fox — $64 on CelebVM
Shakti Kapoor — Rs 40,000 on CeleByte
The take off point for Cameo was in 2016 when when Blencowe had attended Galanis’s grandmother’s funeral in Chicago. On the way back to the airport, Blencowe mentioned about his then career as an NFL agent and he spoke about finding business opportunities for players off the field. He then pulled out his phone to show Galanis a congratulatory video he had asked Seattle Seahawks player Cassius Marsh to record for a friend who had recently had a baby, according to Wired. That’s it, Cameo was ready.
But before Cameo there was CelebVM.com, which was launched out of Bristol in 2013 and is the brainchild of entrepreneur Angus Lancaster. Though the platform came years ago, it now has a limited celebrity roster, like Christopher Biggins, Ben Adams and Samantha Fox. Lancaster was inspired after supplying giant inflatable balls for a One Direction music video (one of his other companies, WaterWalkerz, sells inflatable items). At the set he watched some extras trying very hard to engage the band in a conversation and perhaps get an autograph. Voila!
Over the years, companies in other markets too tried to enter the segment. For example, there’s TheWysh.com. On the platform there are two distinct segments — personalised video messages and custom brand promotion videos. Names on board include Ashmit Patel, Prachi Desai, Sophie Choudry, Shenaz Treasury and Jay Bhanushali.
Tring comes across as a bigger and better-looking platform with prices mentioned for some of the stars. For Raghu Ram it’s Rs 9,999, the same price for Aamir Ali, Rs 14,999 for Salim Merchant and Rs 11,799 for Chetan Bhagat. On Tring, there is also the option of live sessions and DM on Instagram. Since its inception in 2019, Tring has managed to gather 8,000-plus celebrities and, according to the website, attain a “cumulative reach of over 450 million plus as of May 2021”.
Another platform that’s doing well is CeleByte which claims to have access to over 3,000 celebs. Shakti Kapoor’s 30-60 second video can set you back by Rs 40,000 where as a five-minute video call with him will cost Rs 39,999, as for a video message with Anup Jalota comes for a reasonable Rs 9,000 but a three-minute video call is Rs 13,999.
All the personalised-message platforms may also attract some criticism from fans, who believe this takes commercialising “celebrity” status to a new level and also having a price tag automatically opens them up to ranking according to pricing; it’s like becoming a commodity. But humans by nature find thrill in hearing their names being uttered by someone famous. The question is whether you are willing to wait to bump into a celebrity at a Starbucks and getting that dream selfie or spend a few thousand bucks to have a personalised message.
